


Salvation

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Demon Dean, Graphic Torture, Hurt No Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, Mark of Cain, Minor Character Death, Post-Season/Series 09, Pre-Season/Series 10, S9, Stolen Grace, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-23 14:25:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4880290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"And for what, again? Oh, that’s right: to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what? He’s dead, too.”</i>
</p><p>When the prayer reached him, tainted by blood and fire, he knew it was wrong. Dean Winchester was dead. But with the last of his stolen grace slowly burning away, Castiel answered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salvation

**Author's Note:**

> I actually started writing this just after the season 9 finale; it was my first piece of Supernatural fanfiction, but I needed a bit of encouragement to get it finished. The explicit rating is for graphic descriptions of torture—no sexual content.

_He's dead, too._ The words beat through Castiel's mind. _All about saving one human._ A gentle breeze stirred past him, and the kite he stared at danced upon it. He knew Metatron had not lied, not that time, not about any of it. _To save Dean Winchester._ But Dean Winchester was dead.

So when the prayer reached him, tainted by blood and fire, he knew it was wrong. Dean Winchester was dead. But with the last of his stolen grace slowly burning away, Castiel answered.

_"Come to me," he whispered, and Castiel did._

Given the circumstances, the flare of holy fire that rose about him should not have been as surprising as it was. The real shock, though, the sight that nearly brought Castiel to his knees, stood on the other side of the painfully hot flames. _For what? To save Dean Winchester. He's dead, too._

He wasn't dead. Not really. It was so much worse.

"Hey, Cas," the demon greeted casually. "Glad you could make it to the party."

"Dean." Castiel could hear the strain of longing in his own voice, though he couldn't say whether it came from disbelief at the demon before him or mourning for the man that had been. Some part of him—the broken part, he knew, the flaw that had always made him something less than worthy—ached for Dean to step through the fire and rest a hand on his shoulder. He would take that shadow of reassurance even from this creature, if only he could believe it were sincere.

The demon that was once and would always be Dean offered no such comfort as he grinned a reflection of the hunter's easy smile; it would have been a flawless imitation had Castiel not been able to see the gaping maw of bloody teeth below it. "You don't look entirely thrilled to see me, angel. I thought you'd be happy to find me good as new after your boy Metatron got stab-happy.

"Well, okay," he acknowledged after a moment of mock consideration, "better than new. Much better than when you made a mess of the whole resurrection thing. Kinda seems like a waste now, huh, though I do appreciate the shortcut. Coulda been a couple more decades down there before I got to come topside again."

"Dean," Castiel said again, because he knew of nothing else to say.

Dean's bright eyes rolled over the background of pitch. "Yeah, Cas, we've established that. But enough about me, let's talk about you. You're not looking so good, buddy. Could you even flashy-light me to oblivion if I let you out of the circle?"

"I wouldn't, Dean. You can still be saved. I don't want to hurt you."

"I know," Dean answered as the ravenous mouth of his true form twisted into a feral grin to match the face stretched atop; the result was far more menacing than its gnashing had been. He stepped forward through the holy fire, neither expression flinching as the flames latched hungrily to him and curled the flesh into char. As soon as he was through, the wounds began to smooth over until he was whole again.

His whole being radiating challenge, the demon stood before the angel. "Come on, then, Cas. Give it a try. Save me."

Castiel raised a nearly steady hand, fingers reaching for Dean's temple. He could not exorcise the demon without risking harm to Dean's soul; besides which, Dean was most likely right about his lack of power. However, if he could render Dean unconscious for long enough to escape the ring of holy fire, he could relocate them both to the bunker and seek assistance from Sam.

His fingertips brushed Dean's preternaturally hot skin and he focused his will. Something bright and yet-unfamiliar stirred within his chest, but it ebbed before he could put any purpose to it.

Dean, malicious smirk wide as ever, grabbed the outstretched wrist and squeezed, grinding together bones that should not have felt the pain. "Well look at that, I was right. A whole lotta of nothing on the mojo. You know what that means? Today, you're my little bitch."

Flashing open a switchblade from his back pocket, he gripped Castiel's arm even tighter and sliced into the soft flesh. The knife twitched and twisted as he traced angular symbols onto Castiel's skin; the angel's futile attempts to free himself didn't cause even the slightest waver in the lines.

When he was marked from wrist to elbow, Dean released the arm only to grab the left in its place. With no means of escaping the demon or the flames, Castiel studied the cuts. A mix of Enochian sigils and black magic runes bound him to his vessel, hid him from prying senses, and prevented any other angels from contacting him.

As Dean worked symbols into his other arm, he felt his tenuous connection to the foreign grace he held wither to nothing but slight awareness. Thereafter, his all-too-human body shuddered with sudden, sweeping exhaustion and he had to fight to keep his footing.

Dean let go and the flames died to nothing in the same instant. Castiel could barely hold himself up, and thus knew better than to contemplate any attempt to flee as sharp footfalls approached them. It was all he could do to turn his head in the direction of the sound, finding no surprise at the sight of Crowley striding past a table, previously hidden from view and covered in chillingly familiar tools, with something dull and metallic coiled in one hand. In the other, he carried the vicious tooth and bone carcass of the First Blade.

Castiel struggled to find his voice, rasping, "Crowley, what—"

"Can it, feathers," the king of Hell snapped without sparing him a glance as he thrust the length of spiked steel wire at Dean. "As requested. I do like the way you think."

Making the exchange for his knife, Dean pulled the end of the wire free from its coil, heedless of the sharp barbs pricking his hand. He forcefully pulled forward first one of Castiel's wrists, then the other, wrapping each tightly before securing them together.

As the metal twists bit into his skin, the full weight and implications of the situation hit Castiel, and a battered, "Dean, please," tore free of his lungs.

The demon shook his head, voice dripping with sickly sweet insincerity as he advised, "Don't give up so quickly, Cas. You can take more than this, I believe in you." He sent the other end of the wire shooting up with a gesture; it must have tied itself to something near the high ceiling, because the sudden tension snaked the wire more firmly around him.

Then Dean reached out to take the First Blade from Crowley's offering hand. Castiel could see the taut lines of his tendons stretching beneath the skin as he clenched it in his fist. An almost sexual satisfaction softened his features and hooded his eyes with bliss, and Castiel was truly afraid.

Stepping still closer to the pinioned angel, Dean raised the blade to Castiel's neck and whispered it down his throat, touching without cutting. When he reached the collar of Castiel's coat, he slipped it under the sturdy fabric then pulled it across the shoulder and down the arm, slicing through so the fabric fell away. He repeated the motion and Castiel's trench coat flapped to the ground; the sound was disturbingly reminiscent of an angel's flight.

He passed behind Castiel as he cut away the shirt in uneven ribbons, still taking care to avoid breaking the skin. "I think you know how it goes from here, Cas," he said, resting the tip of the jawbone between his scapulae and beginning to apply pressure.

_"Bleed for me," he whispered, and Castiel did._

Barbed wire cut into his wrists, digging deeper when his legs gave out and he sagged. Blood trickled down past the sigils carved into his forearms. His back burned with the wounds cleaved through flesh and muscle, one searing down his spine and two to either side. He gasped for breaths he shouldn't have needed as Dean pulled away from the last gash and moved in front of him again.

"Why are you doing this?" he croaked once he had finally regained the stamina to do so. The misappropriated grace constricted within him buzzed a slow, fevered endeavor to heal, but he could feel it eroding more quickly than ever with much less result.

Dean cocked a crooked smile, brows arched over black eyes. "Demon, dude." He spread his arms in a wide shrug, showing off the Mark on the one still gripping the First Blade. "It's sorta what I do. You remember that, don't you? You sure did when it was useful to you."

"I have no information for you."

"This isn't about information, Cas. This is just fun." He paused, considering. "No, scratch that, this is freaking payback. See, Fergie here," he gestured at the watching King of Hell, who growled a warning, "is still cheesed about the whole Purgatory fiasco. Can you blame the guy? I mean, come on, man, that was a dick move.

"And me?" Dean set down the bone knife and lifted a glistening silver razor from his table, turning it to admire how the reflection of dancing flames sunk into the powerful etchings on its surface. He circled in close to Castiel, ghosting shallow, stinging cuts over the angel's chest as he spoke. "Hell, flyboy, I don't even know where to start with you. You know why I called you family, Cas? It wasn't any of that mushy sentimental crap you got from Sam or Bobby.

"What it comes down to, Cas, is that you basically ruined my life. You've screwed me over more times than even Sammy, and that little bitch has had three friggin' decades to do it. No one can jack you around that much but family."

Castiel's voice was rougher than ever, ragged with pain. "Everything I did, I did for you—"

"BULL!" The shout made him flinch more than the minor slicing that had preceded it, but it was the strike that followed which made him cry out. Sinking the blade deep into Castiel's shoulder, Dean dragged it all the way down his body to his hip. It stuttered over his ribs, dipping between them to nip at lung tissue; none of the stabs quite punctured through, but the scrape and sting left him breathless. The razor drove even further into him as it crossed his stomach, biting through soft tissue and shredding viscera before bouncing painfully off his ilium.

As Castiel convulsed in his fetters, intestine sliding slick and hot from the tear in his abdomen, Dean wiped the bloody blade on his shirt with a shaky hand. His voice roiled with rage as he grated, "Don't lie to me. Half of what you did was because some winged dick or another had you brainwashed, and the rest was some self-righteous power trip based on you thinking you're better than any god, angel, or mortal there ever was."

He twirled the bright blade around his fingers, movements settling into calmer agility, and watched Castiel's paltry grace try to hold his guts in with a faint sheen of flickering light.

"I'd rather hoped for a bit more entertainment than that," Crowley drawled from his position well out of the spatter range of Dean's activities. "I know you're currently incapable of reining in your new-demon-PMS, but if you've killed him right off I'm not going to buy you a new toy."

Dean startled slightly at the interruption, as though he had forgotten the other demon's existence, and the hellish face lurking within his human mask contorted into a silent roar as he turned his attention to Crowley. "Feel free to stop gracing us with your presence any time now, if you're gonna be a dick about it. I know what I'm doing. Cas and me, we got a lot of ground to cover. This ain't gonna be quick."

"You disemboweled the bastard!" Crowley complained with a sweeping gesture at Castiel's body, which was still struggling to contain its evisceration.

Dean snorted a derisive laugh. "He'll get over it." He looked back at the angel. Castiel had been watching the exchange through eyes wide with agony, and he couldn't hold back a flinch as Dean met his gaze and both of the demon's visages slid back to predatory glee.

"Tell you what, though," Dean said, turning to Crowley again. "If you're really worried about it, there's something you can do to help me." He moved further away and the rest of their conversation was lost to Castiel, who let his head slump down as he tried to regain his footing without disturbing the dangerous balance of his innards.

Slow, deliberate footsteps drew his attention back to Dean, now alone. He offered Castiel a warm, familiar smile so fake that the twist in his gut was more painful than the slice through it had been. "He'll be busy for a while," he reported cheerfully, "so we can have some quality time now, just you and me."

Dean circled back behind Castiel, placing a hand on the bare skin of his back. The heat of it was shocking against his own clammy skin, and it stung where it pressed into the deep cuts. "Looks like your sad excuse for healing had to triage. These aren't looking any better at all," he noted. His fingers clenched, pushing into the wounds, and though Castiel tried to pull away, it was useless with his lack of freedom.

"You know, I wish I'd gotten to do this with you at full power. I've had souls, I even got a demon thanks to you, but Crowley's gotten to play with a real angel. But you've always been a disappointment, so that's not really a surprise."

He dug his nails in deeper, tearing the skin further and ripping into muscle until he forced an unwilling gasp out of Castiel. He held the grip for a moment, just long enough for Castiel to groan another shakily inhaled breath, then hummed in apparent satisfaction and pulled back. "Though this does have its perks, I guess. It's a lot like Hell: I can hurt you, really hurt you, and you'll still grow back for me so I can do it all over again."

Castiel felt Dean's hand trail up his back from his injuries, up the slumped curve of his spine to tangle harshly in his hair. Dean yanked his head back sharply, nearly snapping his neck as the demon forced Castiel to meet his gaze. "Over, and over, and over," he promised. He shoved Castiel's face back down toward his chest, where he could see the slice across his stomach had nearly finished knitting itself back together. Dean sauntered again to his table of options and ran his fingers lovingly over several items before lifting a set of thin iron nails and grinning.

"People always overlook the feet. It's really a shame, you can get a lot done with very little effort," he commented as he settled on the ground before Castiel. He took several minutes to arrange the nails in a careful pattern next to him: one with its head toward him, the next with its point, and so on. That accomplished, he reached for Castiel's left foot.

_"Scream for me," he whispered, and Castiel did._

Castiel shivered uncontrollably. He couldn't rest any weight on his feet without pressing the collection of nails deeper into his aching soles, but avoiding that shredded his already destroyed wrists on the barbed wire. He was left rocking from one to the other, taking each form of abuse for as long as he could tolerate it before trading agonies.

Perched on the edge of the table, Dean took another long drink from his whiskey bottle and watched the angel's struggle with unrestrained glee. "Never took you for a dancer, Cas," he said, cackling. "This is pretty good, though."

"Dean." Castiel's voice cracked at the end of the plea as he lurched down on his heels, momentarily lessening the strain on the wires embedded in his skin. The half-healed lines flayed into his back pulled with every labored breath.

"Something I can do for you, Cas?"

"Stop this, please."

Dean jumped up, slamming the bottle on the table and grabbing the First Blade before stalking over to Castiel. He stopped just a foot away, shoving his angrily sneering face right up to Castiel's. "So now you wanna ask for help, huh? Years of your holier-than-thou crap, and all this time, all I had to do to make you get your head out of your ass was work you over a bit? Because, make no mistake, Cas, this is nothing"—Dean's voice shot from dangerously quiet to a bellowing yell in an instant—"NOTHING compared to what I went through because your side had their ineffable freaking plan."

Castiel fought the pain tightening his lungs and ravaging his thoughts to bring up the right words. "I'm sorry, Dean. I know we made mistakes. We were misguided."

"But then you learned better, is that right?"

The question felt like a trap, but Castiel had made a habit of hurtling, eyes open, into certain destruction for Dean Winchester. It was that compulsion, after all, that had landed him at Dean's mercies. The remaining rational part of his mind, barely functional, briefly considered that it might be in his best interest to ignore the question, or even lie. Everything else in him that screamed in torment knew he dare not risk it. "Yes."

"And you rebelled."

"For you," Castiel agreed past the wary churning in his gut.

"For me." Dean seemed to mull this over, making a show of tilting his head this way and that. Then his free hand shot up to snap one of Castiel's fingers backward. The force slammed his wrist against the spiked wire again, and the combined injury buckled his knees, which only served to sink the barbs closer to the bone.

"For as long as it was convenient," Dean corrected. "For as long as you thought you had something to gain by it." He broke another finger. "For as long as I would help you instead of stop you." Another. "For power." The smallest finger then, leaving only Castiel's thumb intact. Then he stepped back and waited.

"I am flawed," Castiel admitted heavily between stuttered breaths. "I made terrible mistakes. I hurt you. That was never my intent. I wanted you to be safe. Happy."

Dean chuckled. "You know what they say about roads and good intentions. And ain't I just the poster boy for that idea? You and me both, only I seem to be doing a lot better with where it led than you. I guess that makes sense, I was having some trouble too before I got to the end.

"I never thought I'd miss the apocalypse, you know? But somehow, things were so much simpler then. Like, nice to meet you. I'm the messiah, and this is my brother, the antichrist."

"Sam was not the antichrist. Jesse Turner—"

"I was being dramatic, Cas. Why do you have to be so literal about everything? Jesus!"

"...Is the messiah, not you."

"Shut up already!" Dean punctuated the shout by stabbing the jawbone into Castiel's side, twisting until his scream faded to a groan. "I'm telling a goddamn story here."

He waited a few moments with the knife still driven into Castiel, confirming his silence, before withdrawing it in a rush of blood and continuing, "So, like I was saying, crap was easy. Demons are dicks, angels are dicks, screw 'em all. Then you had to go and upset the balance, pretending to be human, then pretending to be Crowley's buttbuddy, then pretending to be God; Leviathan and Purgatory and all the fallen angels messing around on Earth—you get it, right? Everything that's gone wrong since Sammy cannonballed into the Cage has been your fault."

Castiel couldn't respond; the last strike had pierced too deeply for his suppressed and depleted grace to rectify. He body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers as the pain at last faded away to fuzzy numbness except for the sharp ache that accompanied each ever-weaker flutter of his heartbeat. The roaring in his ears dampened to near-silence, and he could vaguely make out the sound of raised voices, though they were unevenly muted and distant.

Just as his vision started to blur to black, something fiercely warm moved into his space. A glass pressed against his lips. He limply tried to turn his head away, but a strong hand jerked his chin back and forced his mouth open. The whiskey burned down his throat, choking and harsh, and a deeper fire flowed into him with it.

"Hannah," he gasped as the darkness and pain ebbed, and in its wake bloomed a sickly, sickening guilt. It opened a void into him, sliding into place next to the pits for Balthazar and Samandriel and thousands more, and still all of them combined did not compare to the gaping chasm of what he had done for—to—this one man. The metaphysical ache remained through the trickle of Hannah's grace beginning to heal the worst of his wounds. His eyes sought out Dean's, the black-behind-green abominations sparkling as the demon waved a bottle full of amber liquid and swirling light. "Why?"

"Well, I dunno about you, but I'm havin' just all sorts of fun here. I can't have you dying on me again. I kinda think I've fallen out of the big guy's good graces, you know? I can't rely on Him to bring you back for me a third time."

"How long?" Castiel demanded weakly.

"Hm?" Dean murmured distractedly as he set the bottle down and perused his assortment of tools. Crowley, for it must have been Crowley, had apparently gone again.

"How long do you plan to keep me alive? How many other angels will you kill to accomplish it?"

"Probably not as many as you have," he replied idly, scooping a handful of silver scraps into a dark bowl. As he held it, the metal began to melt and then boil, at which point he carried it over to his captive. "Really, though, that's gonna be up to you."

Only the brutal wire holding him upright prevented Castiel from collapsing in ruin. "Do you want me to beg? Please, Dean." His chest heaved with the desperate words. "Please, let me die."

Dean laughed, all the more disturbing for how genuinely joyous it sounded. "You know it'll take more than that, Cas. No, I'm not gonna kill you just because you want it. That's way too easy. I mean, you're already there, but I've barely started. I don't want you to pray for the end of your existence.

"I want you to pray for the end of mine."

Castiel trembled at the thought. He whispered, "I don't think I ever could."

"I know," Dean whispered back. He curled his empty hand high on Castiel's cheek, gentle for a moment before his thumb and forefinger pulled the lids back from Castiel's right eye. He forced the angel's head up, pushing it to tilt toward his wire-bound wrists, then lifted the bowl just above Castiel's face and poured a thin stream of the bubbling silver. It sizzled as it scorched through the cornea and pooled in the sclera; Castiel could feel the scream choking his throat, but the searing agony left no breath in his lungs with which to push it out. As the liquid metal ate into his eye socket and dripped brands down the side of his face, he was barely aware of Dean's lips inches from his ear.

 _"Love me," he whispered, and—_ God help him _—Castiel did._

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [hit_the_books](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books) for the beta!


End file.
